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The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer

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This thriller goes by fast. Ben Addison is starting his new job as clerk at the Supreme Court. Ben and three college friends all room together in Washington, D.C. They’ve all known each other since childhood. Ben and his fellow clerk, Lisa, are just getting started when Ben is befriended by a man named Rick. He’s a former clerk who fills Ben in on some procedures and guidelines. After speaking on the phone several times, Rick asks if they can meet in person. They meet up at a restaurant and since Rick has been so helpful and is after all, a former clerk himself, Ben shares an opinion that has has been decided but not published yet. Over the next few days Ben watches in horror as a well known investor makes millions of dollars by investing in a company that benefits from the decision. All of a sudden, Rick is nowhere to be found. His phone is disconnected, he’s not at the address Ben has for him. After doing some research Ben and Lisa discover Rick was never a Supreme Court clerk.

Now Ben’s career is in jeopardy. Already he is being courted by one of the top law firms in the country to join them once his year at the court is through. He has broken a pledge to keep all information regarding the court confidential. If he goes to the authorities for help he will lose his job and his career. With help from Lisa and his room mates, Ben sets up a scheme to catch Rick. Because Rick does get back in touch, now blackmailing Ben with threats of going public with his breach unless more information is forthcoming. Soon everyone is bending if not breaking the rules, the room mates are using their positions in other parts of government to try to help. Distrust creeps in, the childhood friends making decisions that will change their lives, or maybe even end them.

There’s lots of dialogue so the book reads quickly. It’s a page turner, and as I read, I could easily imagine the story being made into a movie. It’s also an interesting insight into the workings of the Supreme Court.

Stonehenge, by Bernard Cornwell

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What we know today as Stonehenge has been a place of gathering (we believe it was worship) for several thousand years. The stones in place today were put there about four thousand years ago. This is an interesting tale about a tribe living in the area. The tribes chief had three sons. The eldest, Camaban, was born with a club foot and was banished from the settlement. He lived in the wild, and came to an old temple where the sun had been worshipped before his people changed their allegiance to the moon goddess. The second son, Lengar, was a warrior and was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps to become chief one day. The third son, Saban, was the most well-liked of the three but was too young to be a warrior at the time the story begins. Saban is following Lengar out to the area of the old temple when they come upon an Outlander who approaches the old temple and asks for Sannas, who is priestess of the moon temple in a rival village. Lengar pretends he doesn’t understand the stranger and ends up killing him, even though Saban insists he should be brought before their father. They discover the man had many gold tokens, religious items he had taken from another tribe. Saban sees Lengar take the gold, Camaban, who was hiding nearby, manages to grab a couple of the smaller items and scurry away. Lengar wants to keep the gold for himself but knows that Saban will tell their father, so tries to shoot him with the stranger’s arrows and then claim he was defending his brother from the Outlander. Saban manages to escape but trouble comes when their father demands the gold be given to him for safekeeping. He is a wise and peaceful man, saving for winter when the tribes face starvation. Lengar wants to use the gold to buy warriors to defeat neighboring Cathallo, but surrenders it finally to his father. He then leaves the tribe, taking some of the young men who support him with him.

Later, Camaban is to be sacrificed to the gods but just as he is about to be killed, he opens his mouth and is holding the small gold relics on his tongue. His life is spared but he too disappears from the tribe, leaving Saban as the heir presumptive.

There are lots of plots, twists and turns in this story. I kept wondering how any of this could be known since written language was not around in this part of the world at the time. Camaban goes on to become a sorcerer and even has his club foot at least partially mended so that he only has a slight limp. He decides that the tribe has made a mistake by worshipping the moon goddess and that a temple should be built to Slaol, their word for the sun god. Lengar comes back and does become chief but Camaban is behind the scenes, urging Lengar to build his temple, and sparing Saban’s life so that he can be the one to move the stones. All three will become chief of the tribe at some point in the tale.

An interesting story with lots of superstition, treachery and abundant killing. Weapons were invented long before words, there are swords, daggers, knives, bows and arrows, but there’s also love, friends, families, and the creation of something lasting and beautiful.

Early Warning, by Jane Smiley

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The second book in author Jane Smiley’s trilogy about a family that started out on a farm in Iowa. The first book tells about Walter and Rosanna getting married and buying a small farm of their own. The children are born and grow up and marry. Now those children are married and have children of their own, some of them are grown and married too. It gets complicated. Along the way one boy is killed in Vietnam, a daughter is caught up in the religious group headed by Jim Jones whose members died in Guyana. Even though I’ve never been to Iowa I can relate to much of what is going on because I grew up during the time the events took place. Kennedy’s assassination, along with MLK and Bobby’s deaths make appearances in the book. Rosanna’s sister Eloise was a member of the communist party way back in the day so her opinions are stated along the way. Some of the original brothers and sisters turn out to be assholes, one stays behind and runs the family farm, which grows and expands as he marries, taking on that farm as well, and adopts new practices. Gone are the horses that drew the plough, now it’s tractors and fertilizer and no-till farming, but also crop yields and prices so low the farmers can’t make a profit. Governments and presidents and how the farmer fares with their policies of taking land out of production. One is happily married to the man who carried her away from the farm to the big city where it turns out he works for the CIA and suffers a nervous breakdown. Life goes on from there. the oldest brother has been a regular cheater on his wife, who seems to never notice. From the outside they appear to have the perfect life, beautiful home, lots of money, nice cars, therapist visits, kids growing up and out on their own. The husband is convinced that one of his lovers has produced a son, whom he sees in a coffee shop in Aspen. It turns out to be his relative, but not his son.

I find myself thinking of these characters as a family, similar to my own family but much more colorful. Maybe because i’ve reached the age where so many of my family members have passed away it’s enjoyable to read about this big and complicated, ever changing group, following them along from year to year. Looking forward to the last volume in the trilogy.

The Rising Tide, by Jeff Shaara

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This is a novel about many of the high profile characters of WWII involved in Africa and Italy before the Normandy invasion. Rommel is there, Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery, Hitler of course, President Roosevelt and many others. A few enlisted men’s stories are there as well and theirs are the ones where death is all around them, seeing their pals and even guys whom they hated blown to pieces. Yet some survived and not necessarily due to any special ability on their part.

This is the second book by the author I have read and although I don’t usually like reading about war, the battles and strategy, this book is interesting. I found myself looking forward to reading the next chapter to find out what happened. And then wondering, if Hitler hadn’t kept Rommel away from Africa just before the invasion of Sicily, would the Allies have prevailed? Maybe not, was my conclusion. I had always heard that Hitler kept his generals from succeeding by interfering with their plans. If he had left them to their jobs the outcome of WWII may have been different. But of course it was not in his nature to allow others to have their opinion. Rommel left Africa apparently to convince Hitler that he did not have the supplies needed to fight any longer, that while Mussolini promised ammunition it was never received in the amounts needed to win. Rommel’s plan was to withdraw his army quickly so that it might fight another day in Italy or Germany. Once he was with Hitler, he was kept nearby as an advisor. Much of the German army did escape into Italy, making the Allied invasion and attack much more difficult than the generals had hoped.

There are several historical events described in the book, most notably Patton’s slapping of a soldier in a hospital for a nervous condition. Patton had no patience for what he considered cowardly behavior and perhaps had the doctors and the press not protested so much this incident might not have cost Patton so dearly. And had Patton not been one of the best campaign generals on the Allied side, he would’ve been dismissed over it. Shaara gives a good indication of Patton’s’ personality so that you can see where he’s coming from, whether you agree with his actions or not. He was very strict, requiring men in full uniform including tie, even in the brutal heat of the African desert.

I’ll look for another one of these books by Jeff Shaara. Maybe he continued this story as many of the survivors of the Africa and Sicily campaigns moved to England to begin preparations for the Normandy invasion.

War, by Bob Woodward

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Published 2024

It’s all about Ukraine vs Russia and Israel vs Hamas. This is much more in depth than any news program that I’ve heard since the start of either war. Lots of info on munitions for Ukraine and their fight against Russian forces invading. Also, many details of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 and how surprised the Israelis were. It’s interesting to note that many, many of the Arab leaders adjacent to Israel said that they had told Netanyahu not to deal with Hamas from the very beginning, that they were treacherous. Privately many did not support them but because of the religious differences they can’t do so publicly. You don’t hear in the news that Netanyahu has been funding Hamas for years, I guess as an alternative to Abbas’ group. Personally, I’ve given up on a solution to the MidEast problem, the two-state solution that both sides agreed to now seems to be something Israel is adamantly opposed to, even though they continue to dangle the prize in front of the Palestinians we’ve gotten no further than talk in decades.

Although this was a very interesting book, with many details about the diplomats trying to resolve the Israeli/Hamas war I found it difficult to follow. I can see the journalist’s touch here, going more by date than by the story itself. So I would read several pages about Ukraine and then be plunged into Israel and Hamas because of the timeline. Towards the end of the book, some pages were devoted to what might be called the war on the southern border of the US. I don’t really consider that a war as such but who knows what might happen going forward.

Bob Woodward is always amazing in who he is able to access and his questions are the ones I would want to ask. He is never bombastic like so many reporters today who seem to try to make their interviewees angry. He remains respectful and I think that’s important and shows the difference between true journalism and social media attention grabbers.

Some Luck

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By Jane Smiley

The novel starts in 1920 with Walter Langdon on his small farm in Iowa. He’s twenty five years old and has a wife, Roseanne and baby. Each chapter is another year in their lives on the farm, the children that are born, and one who died. Roseanne’s religious journey, dragging the rest of the family along with her. The children growing up and leaving home. Good weather, and therefore good crop years, and bad, the year the well went dry. The war years and the aftermath. The oldest son Frankie joins the army a few months before he is due to graduate from college. He trains to be a sniper and goes through Italy, France and Germany, seeing the horrors of war but accepting them as part of the deal. Frank’s younger brother Joe, is the one who stays home and becomes a farmer, in the end a better farmer than his dad. Lillian, the perfect daughter remains perfect until she leaves her job at the drugstore one evening to run away with Arthur to Washington, D.C, where they marry and raise a family. Lillian loves life in the city and thinks back on growing up on a farm wondering how she survived without modern conveniences. No wells running dry for her and no telling what was in that well water to begin with. Henry is the book worm, not going to work on the farm, it was evident from childhood. And their last child, Claire, who now that Walter has less responsibilities now that Joe is doing most of the farm work, becomes his favorite.

This is a wonderful story of family life in the rural Midwest.